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Woman on Her Own, False Gods and The Red Robe. Eugène Brieux
Читать онлайн.Название Woman on Her Own, False Gods and The Red Robe
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4064066210175
Автор произведения Eugène Brieux
Жанр Языкознание
Издательство Bookwire
Thérèse [smiling] Some day or other I must tell you a whole lot of things about René.
Mademoiselle de Meuriot. Have you seen him again?
Thérèse. Yes.
Mademoiselle de Meuriot. But you were supposed not to meet any more.
Thérèse [with a mutinous little smile] Yes, we were supposed not to meet any more. One says those things and then one meets all the same. If René had gone on being the feeble and lamentable young man that I parted from the Barberine evening, I should perhaps have never seen him again. You don't know what my René has done, do you now?
Mademoiselle de Meuriot. No.
Thérèse. I've been looking forward so to telling you. [Eagerly] Well, he's quite changed. He's become a different man. Oh, he's not a marvel of energy even yet, but he's not the helpless youth who was still feeding out of his father's hands at twenty-five.
Mademoiselle de Meuriot. And how has this great improvement come about?
Thérèse [looking at her knowingly] You'll make me blush.
Mademoiselle de Meuriot. Was it for love of you?
Thérèse. I think it was for love of me. Let me tell you. He wanted to see me again, and he waited at the door when I was coming out from my work, just as if I was a little milliner's assistant. And then he came back another evening, and then another. While we were walking from here to my place we chattered, and chattered, and chattered. We had more to say to each other than we'd ever had before, and I began to realize that his want of will and energy was more the result of always hanging on to his people than anything else. Then there came a crash. [She laughs] A most fortunate crash. His father formally ordered him not to see me again; threatened, if he did, to stop his allowance. What do you think my René did? He sent back the cheque his people had just given him with quite a nice, civil, respectful letter. Then he left his office and got a place in a business house at an absurdly small salary, and he's been working there ever since. [Laughing] He shocked all the other young men in the office by the way he stuck to it. He got gradually interested in what he had to do. He read it all up; the heads of the firm noticed him and were civil to him, and now they've sent him on important business to Tunis. And that's what he's done all for love of me! Now, don't you think I ought to care for him a little? Don't you?
Mademoiselle de Meuriot. Yes, my dear. But then if he's in Tunis?
Thérèse. Oh, he'll come back.
Mademoiselle de Meuriot. And when will the wedding be?
Thérèse. He's sure his people will give in in the end if he can make some money. We shall wait.
The page boy comes in with seven or eight round parcels in his arms.
Boy. Here are this morning's manuscripts.
Mademoiselle de Meuriot. Put them with the others.
Boy. There was one lady was quite determined to see you herself. She said her article was most particular. It's among that lot.
Mademoiselle de Meuriot. Very well.
Boy. Mademoiselle Caroline Legrand is coming.
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